My name escapes me

Apart from gender, few things are as central to a person’s gender as their name. Someone choosing a pseudonym is likely to choose a new name as close to the original one as possible, or at least keep the same initial. So is a transsexual. Still others go through different versions of their names, adopting [...]

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The health minister visits the hospital

Yesterday, I was sitting in the hallway of the emergency ward at Royal Columbian Hospital, waiting for a bed for a patient, when word came through that George Abbott, the BC Minister of Healthy, was expected through on a tour. “Trip him up and tell him you need a bed right now,” a technician [...]

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First room mates

Right after I moved out of my parents’ house, I shared a basement suite with a high school friend. He had always seemed quiet and responsible – exactly the type of room mate you want when you’re a university student and studying fills your days. But the arrangement wasn’t a success. Inspired by the example [...]

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Exercise and conversation

For me, exercise has always been a contemplative act. I usually exercise first thing in the morning, before I face other people and the day’s business, or at the end of the workday, when I’m trying to relax. Most of the time, I exercise solo, not just from preference but also because doing so is [...]

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Being mistaken for younger than my age

At the gym this morning, someone made a comment that implied that I was a decade younger than I am. That’s not the first time I’ve been pegged at younger than my age,but I admit that the mistake evokes a hypocritical reaction in me – or at least an inconsistent one.

On the one hand, since [...]

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Reliving the commute

The first two days of this week, I left the house at 8AM to get to the Open Web Vancouver conference at the Pan Pacific Hotel. By doing so, I revived all the memories of commuting that I had almost forgotten, working from home for the past three years.
Understand that I have no particular problem [...]

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Hospitals and haunted houses

I spent yesterday afternoon pacing the corridors of a hospital, waiting on the results of an operation. That was the fifth or sixth time I’ve spent a few hours that way, nervous and trying to control my imagination, and it doesn’t get easier with repetition. Nor does familiarity make the hospital any more of a [...]

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My alternate lives

The concept of alternate worlds has fascinated me since I first heard of it as a young teenager. Not just the big ones, like a world where William the Bastard went down to defeat at Hastings and a Saxon England looked to Scandinavia rather than the Mediterranean for culture, ir the Haida had an [...]

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A walkway of cherry blossoms

This time of year, one of the hidden wonders of downtown Vancouver is the Burrard Street Skytrain station. On the walkway above the ticket level, the cherry trees are blossoming. Overhead, the skyscrapers loom, and the homeless are huddled in blankets less on the sidewalks than a block away, but, on that walkway, both are [...]

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Massive Trade Show? Not So Much

The large IT trade show is in decline all over North America. Comdex disappeared a few years ago, and, despite the thriving market for GNU/Linux, LinuxWorld Expo cut back from twice a year to one. However, since many of these events have been replaced by smaller gatherings, I thought that room might still exist for [...]

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